


Lore

by GrimRevolution



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Navajo Keith, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, cryptid buddies, they literally go monster hunting what more do u want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 10:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12862380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/GrimRevolution
Summary: Something lurks in the dark. Something that shouldn't exist.





	Lore

**Author's Note:**

> "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
> But I have promises to keep,   
> And miles to go before I sleep,   
> And miles to go before I sleep."
> 
> \- Robert Frost

Shiro jerked awake, his eyes staring blankly at the wall, nose scrunched up in discomfort and trying to focus on what, exactly, had woken him. There was an insistent buzzing noise coming from his nightstand and he looked over at the phone currently lighting up the dark of his bedroom.

Closing his eyes, Shiro rolled over and curled back up underneath his blankets, waiting for the noise to stop. When it did, he breathed out and tried to bury his face into the cold side of the pillow. His window was half open; the sound of the early birds chirping before the sun had risen, finding the crickets that hadn’t fled back into their hiding places—wherever those were.

It was too early to be up. Or, at least, it was too early for anyone _important_ to be calling him.

Pulling his sheet over his head, Shiro let the tension bleed out of him. Sleep was more important. Sleep was good.

The phone buzzed again, vibrating violently against his night stand.

Opening one eye, he glared at the wall and scowled. Moonlight cut apart into thin slices spread across the posters of space exploration and planets and he traced one edge of a cartoon UFO one before the odd hollow buzzing that only came from something vibrating against wood stopped because the phone hit his carpet with a _clunk_.

“ _Damnit_ ,” Shiro pushed himself up onto what was left of his arm and frowned. He found the rectangular bit of pale light announcing a caller and grudgingly rested his torso against the mattress before leaning over his bed to pick the phone up. He was tempted to slide the phone over to the hang up icon—more tempted than anything else—but put it in the green circle instead.

“ ** _What_**?!”

“ _Shiro_!”

Oh _God_. “Pidge,” He flopped back on the bed, bouncing slightly on the mattress, and stared up at his ceiling, “it’s _three_ in the _morning_.”

_“I know, I know but **Shiro** —”_

There was a sound on the other side of the line; something like a whimpering, a choked gasp, and Shiro was sitting up, far more awake than he had been a couple of second prior.

“What was that?”

Silence came from the other end, only filled by the crackle of his phone. He threw his legs over the side of the bed, balancing the plastic between his ear and his shoulder. “Pidge?” He tried as he picked a pair of jeans off the desk chair. “ _Pidge_?”

“ _Sorry, **sorry** ,_” Pidge gasped over the speaker and sucked in a great, heaving breath as if she had been holding it all that time, “ _I don’t know where Keith is, Shiro, I’m—_ ”

A scream, almost a howl, cut her off and there was that same, gasping sob only this time Pidge’s voice followed. “ _It’s okay,_ ” she was talking to herself, he realized with a start, “ _it’s okay, I’m safe, I’m safe_ ,” Her voice was becoming slightly hitched, more panic seeping into the words the longer she spoke like blood in a wound.“ _It’s okay, it’s **okay**_.”

Shiro wrestled his pants over his hips one handed and cursed, reaching for his prosthetic. “Where are you?” He demanded, managing to keep his voice calm but hard enough to get answers. The metal and plastic snapped around the stump of his arm and he focused on that for a second only to realize that she hadn’t answered him. “ _Pidge_ , where _are_ you?”

“ _The old bridge_ ,” her voice came through softer, a whisper from her side that was almost a hiss between her teeth and he wondered if she was injured and if she was then _where was Keith_ , “ _the one off Bray Road close to the_ — ** _shi_** _—_ ”

The phone clicked and beeped with that annoying, low pitched dial one noise and Shiro cursed, sliding it into his pocket before grabbing a shirt, tugging it over his head. He snatched the keys off his desk and didn’t bother locking the front door as he ran out to his truck.

oOo

_Two Hours Earlier_

A sliver of silver hung low in the sky; the moon was halfway up to its highest point, looking like a winking eye over the tree line. It was still bright enough to turn the leaves of the canopy white but not enough that the headlight of a red motorcycle could be turned off so they could navigate the road in the dark. It made the shadows between the trunks look darker, spreading the shapes and shadows until they looked like creatures and drawing her eyes to tricks and shapeless mounds that could have been beasts or wolves or deer.

The motorcycle rumbled between Pidge’s thighs like a giant purring cat. It wasn’t a loud beast, not like those spitting, hissing Harley Davidson’s, but something more quiet; a cheetah among lions. Her skin felt odd under her jeans, like the buzzing of white noise on a television screen and she adjusted her legs, but only slightly. Her knees pressed almost uncomfortably into Keith's sides, but he didn't seem to mind. The dry bags on either side of her legs pushed them up so that they weren't quite straddling his hips, and they made a nice sort of armrest to lean back and enjoy the wind on.

Late summer air was whipping through her long ponytail, teasing the ends and brushing her bangs in and out of her face when she turned to look at some flash that had caught her attention in the dark. It needed a trim or maybe she would change her hairstyle completely. She wasn't fourteen anymore and while she liked her hair long, it would be nice for a change.

It was just hair, after all.

The night was quieter than she had expected coming out. Not like Lance's flashing lights and banging music that made her brain want to squeeze out through her ears. It was tiring just thinking about the noise level and so she focused on the wind instead and the way it howled like a beast. Every once in awhile she expected something to pass--animals, cars, people, maybe a cryptid or two, but Bay Road was mysteriously empty for the night. There had been some reports of people gone missing, but those were just stupid little ghost stories meant to scare new people who had moved in. Lance had thought it was funny to play a prank about it one day, she was sure that after the scolding he got from Shiro that nothing of the sort would be happening again.

Pidge sighed and rested her cheek against the back of Keith's jacket, staring out into the darkness of the woods, the trees turning to blurs as she didn’t focus on one object and just stared into the darkness. It was leathery and old; a soft thing that seemed more like it was worn through multiple years and a variety of weather.

Keith shifted in front of her, the bike revving louder for a second before they picked up speed, rounding a corner at almost too-dangerous-to-do-so speeds. The tires shrieked beneath them in admonishment, and Pidge laughed—the sound whisked away by the wind—and held on tighter to his waist.

He slowed down again and her heart was thundering in her chest, almost threatening to rise up her throat and jump ship if he did it again.

She hoped he would.

As they came to one of the straighter stretches of the road, her arms loosened a bit from around his waist and she got the courage to lean back a bit. The moon stuttered in and out from between the trees, looking like a only film projector going through the first couple of slides on a film. He took the next corner slower and the moon was framed by the reaching branches of the trees on either side of them, lighting up the path in front of them invitingly like a silver road to the Wizard of Oz. Pidge placed her hands on Keith’s shoulders after a second of consideration, and then leaned forward to take in the glinting of stars above them, spattering like celestial freckles across the face of the sky.

The trees passed by as if they were fence posts with invisible chain links, their white bark illuminated by the moon, the black markings of their eyes glaring accusingly at her as the motorcycle purred past. She didn’t dare meet their gazes, a shiver crawling up her back as she leaned back into Keith. The tops ruffled from a breeze, the woods shaking like a sleeping giant.

A light flickered out of the corner of her eye. Pidge’s attention was drawn to it almost instantly, her head snapping around as she searched for it between the dark trunks of the trees.

It was almost like someone flashing a strobe except the colour wasn’t as bright or blinding and the flickering effect was like the moon between the trees; stuttering and more of a flicker. She found it again, this time flashing a little above the canopy, between the spaces of the tall trees and the shorter ones, like a blinking eye of Sauron in the distance.

It was a dim, amber kind of thing; more yellow and orange than the pale sliver of the moon.

Pidge patted her driver on his shoulder. “Keith!” she yelled over the howling wind, “ _Keith_!”

The bike slowed, easing the roar around them. “What?”

She pointed and he turned his head enough to catch the light in the corner of his eye.The bike slowed to a stop and he set his foot down, the bike leaning ever so slightly to the left, on the white line on the side of the road. There was no place to really pull over unless he wanted to drag his bike into the small ditch, so if anyone came by they would have to hope that they saw them and gave enough space to pass.

“Wha—”

Pidge straightened up until she was almost standing, her feet on the rests and using Keith’s shoulders for balance. “Where _is_ that?” The light was coming in and out of focus as the trees quaked around them making it hard to figure out a distance.

“Not sure,” he said, frowning and tilting his head slightly to the side like a cat listening for a mouse. The moon made his eyes look purple in the dark. “I think... it's the old factory.”

Turning back to him, Pidge frowned. She’d explored that old factory from top to bottom when she was a kid with her brother, Matt. It was a nice little hang out spot for thrill seekers but had gotten more attention than necessary when some people from a popular TV ghost hunting series decided to take a look.

The episode was bogus; she had watched it with Hunk and laughed at it all even as the giant engineer clung to her arm.

“The old factory?” Pidge mused. She hadn’t been there in years. Not since Matt had... since Matt had disappeared.

“Yeah, it became a popular place for party kids not too long ago,” Keith said, shrugging and almost knocking Pidge off balance.

She sat back down on the bike, breath caught in her throat until her butt was on the seat. “Party kids? Like raves?”

“More like rebellious kids looking for something to do,” His shoe scratched against the pavement and Pidge turned her attention back to the strange light. “Sometimes they’ll go around and pretend the place is haunted, just for some spooky videos to post online.”

“Has anyone found anything?”

Keith scoffed. “No,” he said, “ghosts aren’t real.”

“How _dare_ you,” Pidge pouted, “You know, you might not believe in ghosts but that doesn’t mean they don’t believe in _you_ —”

The last word turned into a partial screech as the bike wrenched and spun, forcing Pidge to wrap her arms tightly around his waist, the tires squealing as he turned them perpendicular to the road. The engine revved beneath them before they roared down the side of the ditch. “What the _hell_ —”

Keith guided them through a gap in the trees and onto a small, dirt path. It was a trail of some sort with old bike tracks and horse shit off to a side. The trees were all around them, looming like giants, branches curling above their heads like claws and she ducked out of instinct to keep their knobby fingers out of her hair.

Getting the courage to peek over his shoulder, Pidge saw the flickering of the amber light and she grinned against his worn, leather jacket.

He might not believe in ghosts, but curiosity had a tendency to kill the cat.

The trail was uneven and she was forced to press her thighs up against his hips, holding on tightly to his waist as they went over rocks and through smaller holes in the ground. It wasn't too bad—his bike wasn't overly sporty but wasn't one hundred percent cruiser either—and Pidge simply just settled herself down, trusting that Keith had it all under control and that she would be fine when they finally reached the edge of the trees.

They went more in a half-circle though, turning until she was lost under the canopy of aspens. The eyes on the trunks watched them, staring accusingly at them as they passed, closer no and she shuddered, turning away to keep her eyes on the small little trail of dirt in front of them. Shadows reached out for her and she straightened her shoulders against the ones that made a shiver run up her back.

“Damn,” she breathed as the trail forked and dipped low, the drop rough enough that she sucked in a breath when Keith went down. There was a river there, with a plank of wood that acted as a makeshift bridge. He had to put his feet down, easing the bike down and over the hill, gently easing them to the crossing as Pidge leaned back. She weighed next to nothing compared to him and the motorcycle, but that didn’t stop her from trying to balance them out so they, nor the bike, would go toppling over.

“Holy _damn_ ,” she hissed as they reached the other side and Keith laughed—a quiet, warm sound that made the trees a little less frightening.

He'd obviously come this way before. Probably a lot more, to be honest. She and Matt had come through a different route—one that was from one of the more wider walking trails that went around some of the bigger farm lands.

“This is the only way there from the main road without taking the bridge,” Keith told her and she blinked, looking up into the trees for that amber light only to see nothing. “it’s over there—some old, stone thing built in the 1800's that could probably barely carry this bike let alone a car.”

Brushing her bangs back behind her ear, Pidge looked in the direction she remembered seeing the light and saw nothing but trees and darkness. “Bridges will surprise you,”she said absently, leaning back far enough to fish her phone out of her pocket and pressed the power button. No signal. She probably would have had trouble on this path not to mention the one she and Matt had used in their youth. If that even existed anymore.

“Its north from here,” Keith said, pointing in one direction and she wondered if she should tell him that she couldn't tell the difference before just nodding along. Hopefully they wouldn’t' get separated in this mess of a woods. Everything looked the same to her out here.

The bike rumbled to a stop and he turned off the engine, keeping the bike still as she dismounted before getting off himself. There was a tingling in her thighs and she rubbed it away as he unhooked the dry bags and tossed her one before hoisting the other over his shoulder. “Okay,” he said, “we'll have to do the rest on foot.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Pidge saluted and he tossed her a questioning look before shrugging and turning away, holding up a flashlight to illuminate the trail.

Before she could even worry about seeing while trailing behind him, Keith pulled her up to walk beside him, eliminating the problem all together. Her shoulder dug into his bicep and their sides kept bumping as he led them down the makeshift path made by bikes and constant usage rather than any professional trail makers.

The amber lights of the factory loomed next to them, getting closer and closer the further Keith led her until they reached a crumbling fence, rusted wire broken in some places, the poles bent and leaning over like old men. They found a small enough space to squeeze under and Pidge pushed herself through the hole, feeling the earth catch on her jacket and on her hands as she pulled herself through. Keith had to do a bit more wiggling, but managed to squeeze through, his jacket not quite catching on the barbed wire.

They kept low, working their way up the small hill (hill, right, it was more like a lump on the surface of the planet), eyes on the lights through the small grouping of trees.

When she finally saw the factory in all its old glory, Pidge grinned. The moon managed to partially illuminate the sharp, rusted corners, but there was something about the thick vegetation growing along the brick walls, the rusted iron, and even the broken, half open windows that was charming. Harsh angles of brick and metal were softened by vines and moss. Empty places were filled by bushes and trees trying to reach up to the sky. It was a place where nature and machine had come together—no, it was more of a place where nature was reclaiming the machine, swallowing it up inch by inch every moment.

She tripped over some rocks and waved Keith away when he reached out for her, flushing slightly at her lack of focus and tried to pay more attention to where her feet were going, but the factory was massive and Pidge couldn't help that her attention kept being drawn back to it. There was a staircase that led down somewhere, possibly an equipment room or even a boiler, but her attention was on the large windows that were lit.

The windows were too fogged over for her or Keith to be able to look in, and those that had been broken were patched over with sagging cardboard and their focus had to turn higher.

Much higher.

The next broken window was more than twenty feet up, broken, cracked, crumbling brick between the ground and it. Pidge shed her jacket and laid it over an iron bar, patted the denim almost lovingly, and then turned her attention to the awkward path. Her small fingers caught on to little dips and crevices, toes managing to find purchase in places they probably shouldn't have been able to.

And she climbed.

It was slow going at first; she wasn't quite sure if the brick would hold her weight or not and some of it didn't—crumbling beneath her and landing beside Keith—but she slowly found her rhythm and reached ten feet only after the moon had risen quite a fair distance up in the sky. One of the window sills broke under her foot and there was a breathless moment as Pidge pulled herself above it while holding her breath and refusing to look at the drop that was waiting for her if she made a mistake.

The broken window she had been looking for didn't have any glass—a blessing, really—and she tumbled through the opening, making a small crashing sound as she landed. Pidge stopped moving immediately, barely daring to breathe as she listened for any sign that anything was coming to investigate before scrambling up to her feet and looking out the window.

Keith was looking up at her, his pale face almost vampiric in the night. He eyed the path she had taken, head tilted to the side before he started. She watched his progress, keeping an eye on the edge of the woods and another on the path leading around the buildings. When he was close enough, she reached down and let him use her arms to get the rest of the way up to the window, climbing through with quite a bit more grace than her 'fall and tumble' strategy.

She only noticed that they were in an old office when Keith turned on his little hand-held flashlight again. The wood creaked and groaned beneath their feet and an old desk in the corner left long abandoned. Graffiti covered the walls, but even that was overgrown and weathered away by time and the nature. Everything smelled of dirt, dust, and copper and the scent of it was so overwhelming for a moment that Pidge had to stifle a couple of harsh sneezes. They made their way out of the office out onto a crossing of catwalks and Pidge pinched her nose shut as another, rough sneeze ripped through her body. “Sorry,” she muttered and rubbed at her irritated nose.

“Shh,” Keith said, pulling her over to one of the banisters that looked over a warehouse-like section of the building. They were clearly standing on the boss-catwalks where the owner or manager could watch over the proceedings of their empire. “Look,” he pointed at the room across from where they were on the ground floor and Pidge's attention caught on the flickering light in the windows.

“Ghosts,” she said, eyes lighting up and pointedly ignored the exasperated look her co-worker gave her.

“Or kids looking for a fun time,” Keith muttered mostly to himself and pointed the flashlight over the rest of the catwalk.

A flare of red eyes sent them both jumping backward with startled yelp, the raccoon looking over them with clear disinterest before going back on its way. Pidge pressed her hand over her heart and felt it hammering angrily in her chest. “Jesus,” she muttered, but followed Keith as he made his way carefully to a staircase. The iron was a bit worn, yet it held as they made their way down, carefully keeping their steps from landing too heavily in case it wouldn't hold them so steadily.

The ground made them both breathe a little bit easier and they inched closer to the windows, shapes clearer the closer they got and they settled below the sill before slowly inching upwards to peek through the dusty glass.

There was nothing there. A trashcan with a bunch of what looked like the remains of furniture that had been broken crackled in the middle, lighting up the area and sending the shadows dancing. The legs of chairs, a back of a sofa, and what looked like some old banister poles stuck out of the top, making the whole thing look like a horned creature. Pidge wiped away what she could from the glass and got as close as she was able without sticking her nose against it.

“I don’t see anyone,” she said.

Behind her, Keith rummaged through his dry pack and pulled out a hammer looking thing with cone-like spikes at both ends. “Here,” he handed it to her.

“Why do you have a window breaker,” Pidge held the heavy plastic in her hand, “why would you even _need_ it?”

“Emergencies.”

“You don’t have a _car_ , what would the emergency even be _for_?” She muttered and turned to the window. It was when Pidge raised the hammer up that she paused. “Wait, there’s gotta be an entrance—we don’t need to _break_ the window.”

Keith stared at her, his eyes like black holes. “I mean, if you don’t want to—”

She pulled the hammer out of his reaching grasp and held it protectively against her chest. “Absolutely not,” Pidge told him, turned around, and smashed the metal part against the window.

The glass cracked first in a strange circular pattern that exploded outwards to the edges. It didn’t fall, though—whether because it was too thick or not, so Pidge wrenched the window breaker out and away before hitting it again, that time with the butt of the plastic. Again, it didn’t shatter. Instead, the glass reacted more like syrupy liquid, bending and sticking together where normal glass would have shattered. She used the window breaker to pry pieces away, chunks that landed at her feet with a clunk until the window frame was mostly cleared and open.

Climbing through it was an adventure of figuring out where to put her feet and hands without pressing too hard into the broken chunks of glass still stuck in the window frame. The glass was thick enough to feel different—not as sharp—but there were still edges and Pidge worked through the entrance like an awkward monkey.

She didn’t bother watching Keith work his way through, and knew she would just get angry if she did, so Pidge turned her attention to the empty bottles strewn about, the crackle of the fire in the metal barrel, and the crackle of a radio. A couple cases of unopened beer had been left in one corner, some backpacks and purses in another. Someone had even abandoned their jacket hanging over a crate.

It looked like a set of a movie that was supposed to be filled with people and they had all just left to go eat leaving it abandoned but everything perfect, just waiting for them to fill it again. Pidge found the speakers on the ground, knocked off a three legged iron table that had rust along one side and looking like it had seen better days. The headphone jack was unplugged, and the blue ‘on’ light flickered pathetically up at her. She turned them off, wrapped the cord around the speakers, and put them in the dry bag.

Keith passed by her, walking over to the abandoned bags over by the windows looking out towards Bay Road. The moon was a glimmer through the dirty, old glass with strange black burn marks along the edges, and she couldn’t see the road, the outlines of the houses, or even the bridge. Everything was shapeless lumps and she turned away after trying to distinguish the woods from the sky.

Something brushed her arm and Pidge turned away from the window only to find Keith offering one of the bags to her. The other opened ones with their insides pulled out had her raising her eyebrows.

“What?” Keith said, his eyes dark and challenging her to say something.

“Nothing,” Pidge shrugged and went through the bag he brought over to her, finding a flashlight bigger than her own, some granola bars, a faded grey sweatshirt, and a couple of knick-nacks she just put to the side.

Metal hit metal with a loud _bong_ sound that vibrated from her feet up through her skull and Pidge turned to glare at Keith who was still holding the broken half of a pipe and winding up to hit the barrel again. “What are you doing?” she hissed.

He hit it again without an answer and sparks exploded from the fire, swirling up into a maelstrom before fading.

“Keith!”

“There’s something in there,” he said and she came over to squint into the ashes and the light of the fire. The wood was glowing an angry red, but—sure enough—past that she could see the something black and metallic. Pidge was pulled away by Keith’s hand on her elbow and he took another swing, hitting the top of the barrel and sending it teetering on an edge. It didn’t fall over, but before it steadied, the pipe smacked the side one more time and the whole thing fell over with a tremendous crash that had both of them wincing and stilling to listen, their breath caught in their throats as they tried to see if the noise had caught anyone’s attention.

Embers, wood, and whatever else was burning spilled out onto the floor—including whatever had got Keith’s attention in the first place—and added to the already mess of scorch marks other kids had probably left behind. He stomped out the glowing sparks closest to the black object and kicked it carefully away from the heat with the toe of his boot.

A phone. It was a phone. One of those big, expensive ones that probably came with a life insurance policy in case someone dropped it in the toilet. The screen had cracked from the heat but there was no mistaking it. Pidge grabbed the sweatshirt she had dug out of the backpack and used it to keep her hands safe from the heated metal, knocked away the empty beer bottles and cans on one of the makeshift tables, and placed it down on the wood.

It didn’t want to turn on, not that she could blame it, so Pidge wrapped the phone up in the sweatshirt and shoved the whole thing into the backpack. She was zipping it up when she noticed the odd drops on the cement flooring. It was so dirty and covered in stains that she hadn’t noticed it to begin with but now, looking them over—these weren’t old oil marks or paint. They didn’t look old at all.

“Keith?”

“Yeah?”

She pointed and he pulled away from poking the fire to look at what had got her attention. “Think I found something.”

He tilted his head to the side like a cat and narrowed his eyes.

The spots were brownish and flaking off iron but stuck to wood. There were some on the floor, on the table she had put the phone, and even on one of the cases of beer now that she was looking.

“Blood,” she said, mostly to herself.

Keith grunted in agreement.

The pipes above them banged and groaned, rattling and shaking with loud screeching that made Pidge’s bones feel like they had frozen sandpaper being run up and down them. Something slammed in a faraway place, echoing through the many hallways and tunnels of the factory so it echoed from above and below.

Then, it stopped leaving Pidge’s heart racing high up into her throat and blood rushing through her ears. Keith’s eyes were wide, focused on the pipes above their heads and looking more like a startled cat by the moment.

“So,” Pidge managed to choke out once she managed to make oxygen not feel as if it was a solid rather than a gas, “still don’t believe in ghosts?”

Keith’s answer was still a strong but not quite convincing ‘no’ and decided that in order to prove to her that it wasn’t a ghost they were going to find the source of the sound.

“This is a horrible idea,” Pidge told him at least three times as they walked, holding the flashlight she had ‘borrowed’ from the backpack currently hanging heavily over her shoulders. She had put the dry bag in it just to save space and so that she wasn’t carrying two bags at once and Keith had taken a pair of wire cutters that had been left by the door they hadn’t used because breaking the window was more _exciting_.

Now they were making their way through a long hallway with square windows on either side. With the moon ahead, they were a faded, pale green that was almost mint-like but was too blue to be truly earthly. Some were popped out in places and plants were steadily growing up and around the thin, metal panes. Leaves, broken glass, and chunks of… other things crunched beneath their feet as they walked and Pidge kept the light firmly focused on the ground so she wouldn’t trip or step on something that would, well, _hurt_.

“This is how people die in horror movies,” she told him, carefully stepping around a cinderblock with nails sticking out of the top.

“Good thing we aren’t in a horror movie, then,” Keith didn’t bother looking back at her so Pidge stuck her tongue out at his leather jacket and crossed her eyes.

They reached the end of the odd hallway connecting the main factory to a side building and found what looked to be the lobby of what could have been a handsome apartment building at one time. Work dormitories, Pidge figured, looking at the peeling wallpaper and wooden decorations that were now cracked and blackened by moss. There was a wall of wooden lockers with small, dark green boxes in the front for mail, a hand painted ‘No Smoking” sign above the main doors, and the staircase had definitely seen better days but it was still holding together despite the wood, torn fabric, and shattered mirrors on either side.

Keith was heading towards them, his flashlight on the faded wood. They creaked and groaned under his weight, but held and he started to slowly go up. Pidge hesitated in the lobby for a moment longer before following, careful to keep her feet light and keep close to the wall so that they didn’t make as much noise.

The lobby had looked like a tornado had swept through it, but the second floor looked as if it had been caught in a forest fire. Her flashlight illuminated walls and ceiling that had been scorched black, floral wallpaper peeling and blackened around the edges, and the burnt, crumbling husks of doors.

It looked like a standard house fire.

Except…

_Except_ that the floorboards were untouched.

The whole place smelled of charcoal and smoke, but the burn marks were more like something had dragged its hands across the walls as it walked. Pidge traced them as far down the walls as she could, but they seemed to come from a room farther than her flashlight could reach.

Keith stepped out onto the floorboards carefully, even more carefully than he had on the stairs. His weight was moved forward slowly, inch by precious inch and he paused each time the boards groaned. But they didn’t do anything more than that, so he kept moving forward and Pidge followed behind.

She reached out and touched one of the marks and her fingers came back, blackened with soot.

“Hey,” Keith said and Pidge looked away from the scorch marks to see him standing in front of a doorway. The wood that would have been blocking the room from view was broken to splinters, almost as if something had gone at it with an ax or a woodchopper. Blackness was around the frame, covering the wood and spreading out into the hallway.

The apartment was a husk. A burnt one. There was burn marks across the walls, on the ceiling, and this time on the floorboards. A plastic chair was half melted in the corner and a table looked like it was about to collapse at any moment with three of its four legs looking like matches whose heads had partially burned off until the neck was thinner in the middle. Something darker was under the soot in the room and Pidge leaned in closer with her flashlight, trying to figure out a way to wipe the dark away to find what was underneath.

Keith had gone to the center of the room where the floor was the darkest and was digging away with his heel before he squatted down and started to brush away what he could with his hands.

Grimacing, Pidge reached out to do the same. The ash covered her fingers instantly, coating them with thick, black dust and she smeared it even worse but managed to thin out the area she was looking at enough to see what it was.

The same, dark brown stains she had found in the factory were there, splattered like paint along the wallpaper. “Oh, _fuck_ —”

There was a small click and then the shutter of a camera phone and she turned to see Keith just before the flash went off and made her blink spots out of her eyes. The flashlights flickered, but Pidge saw what he had uncovered.

“We should leave,” she said.

Keith looked back at her, his eyes dark and face a sharp pale. The moon was coming in partially through the window as their flashlights flickered again. “Yeah,” he stood up and wiped his hand on his pants, leaving long black marks on his jeans. “Yeah, it’s time to go.”

They followed the burns back to the stairs (and Pidge ignored the way that they only went towards the stairs, not the other way to the end of the building and the window that looked out over the woods) and Keith froze, his hand hovering over the railing, eyes wide and staring at the wall and EXIT sign with an arrow pointing towards the descending staircase.

There was creaking beneath them. Slow, heavy creaking with a couple of seconds in between edging closer and closer to the stairs.

“Go,” Keith spun around, grabbed Pidge by the shoulders, and aimed her at the other end of the hall, “go, go, _go_ ,” he hissed.

They ran as lightly and as fast as they could, sticking closer to the walls to keep the floorboards from giving them away as much as possible. It didn’t stop the wood from betraying them, but they reached the window on the other side and Pidge fished the glass breaker out of her pocket and slammed it as hard as she could against the only thing keeping them trapped.

Glass fell like rain onto the overgrown grass and weeds crawling up the building and Pidge scrambled to get through, turning around to grab the windowsill and freezing as she saw something reach the top of the stairs. It stared at her with gleaming gold eyes, its face in shadow, body almost too long to be real.

“Pidge! _Go!_ ”

She almost dropped in shock before climbing down, holding onto the ivy to keep herself steady and only looked up to make sure Keith was following. It wasn’t too far, and she jumped back off the wall to land away from the broken glass, ignoring the tingling that rose up through her feet and ankles.

The moment Keith was next to her, though, they were running. Away from the apartments, away from the factory, back towards the path and, beyond that, the woods.

Pidge looked back once and saw the thing watching them from the window and not even the light of the moon could illuminate its face. They made it to the edge of the trees before both of them slowed to a stop, panting and resting their hands on their knees as they tried to calm their racing hearts and ease the burning in their chests.

There was no sound or sign of anything following them and Pidge sat down on the grass and leaned back, her face tilted towards the sky. A breeze ruffled her hair and she fell completely back against the grass, rubbed one hand down her face, and realized how much of a mistake that was when she tasted ash.

“Gross,” she muttered and pulled her shirt up to wipe away what she could.

“I’ll be right back.”

Pidge froze and sputtered like an engine that wouldn’t start. “I’m _sorry_?” She turned to Keith who was already moving back towards the buildings. The windows that had attracted them to the factory to begin with were still lit with that amber glow but it was less now. The fire must have been dying down.

That didn’t matter. “Did you not see that… _thing_?”

Keith rubbed a hand across his face and she noticed that he, too, was covered in smears of black. “I left something behind when I was going through the bags.”

“Oh?” Pidge stared up at him, her eyes narrowed, “like what?”

“Doesn’t matter—”

“You’re not going back in for it—”

“The hell I’m not.”

Pidge had gotten up to her feet and she wasn’t quite eye to eye with Keith, but that didn’t stop her from almost being nose to nose with him. “What could be possibly so important to go back into that place?”

“My knife.”

“Your—”

Keith looked away from her. “It was my mom’s.”

Her heart thumped hard and heavy against her rib cage and she pulled back to press her face in her hands and groan for a solid thirty seconds. When Pidge looked up again, Keith was still there, staring at her like she was some kind of weird new species. “Go,” she shooed him off, “go and get your stabby stab I’ll just…” she sat back down in the grass, “I’ll stay here and wait for you.”

He hesitated for a second before turning and running back towards the factory buildings and the dim light. Pidge grabbed handfuls of overgrown grass and pulled it out, laying it across the tops of her thighs as she watched the sky. A meteor shot by, burning up in the atmosphere and she grinned before closing her eyes and making a wish.

The grass rustled and she stayed where she was, head titled back to the sky. “That was quick,” she said.

No answer.

“Keith?”

Wind pushed against her back, brushing her ponytail over her shoulder and blew her bangs into her face. The smell of smoke made her sneeze and she turned around, mouth opening to say something to Keith—

Gold eyes glared down at her, sparking like embers in ashes. The creature’s face was black and formless with no nose, no mouth, and no hair. Only the glowing, golden eyes.

Pidge scrambled up to her feet and almost tripped over her own shoelaces. She dug for her flashlight and held it out like a sword. “The fuck are you?!”

It took a step closer and the grass withered and parted, turning brown as steam rose from the stems. A strange hissing noise—like water in a kettle—came from the ground it was walking on. Whatever it was wore no clothing, kind of like how a tiger wore no clothing, and thin cracks of red and yellow came through the otherwise blackened form almost like magma underneath a hardened, dark shell.

Ah, fire. Okay, that made a strange amount of sense.

“Okay,” Pidge took a step back, still holding the flashlight as if it was an actual weapon, the light flickered on and looked like a dim light saber in the steam that was slowly surrounding them from the plants. “Dunno who the _hell_ you are, but you need to _back off_.”

It took a step closer, lifted one hand, and _reached_ —

“NOPE!” Pidge turned on her heel and sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her. The flashlight was clenched in her sweaty palm, useless as it swung back and forth, so she had to find her way through the long grass without tripping over anything. Her toe hit what felt like a slab of wood and sent her butt over head rolling down a slight incline where she hit the bottom with a grunt that rattled up her ribcage.

That sizzling noise was approaching, and Pidge pushed herself up to her feet using scratched and bruised elbows and knees. Her foot felt a bit off and the first steps sent a lightning strike up from her knee to her pelvis, but she gained speed and then was running again. The flashlight was lost somewhere behind her, the fall having cracked something inside before she dropped it and the light had gone out completely, leaving her alone in the dark.

She stumbled over a small hole, throwing her arms out and managing to catch herself before looking back over her shoulder and seeing those gleaming eyes watching her over the grass, coming closer.

So.

Very.

Slowly.

Pidge made a sound in the back of her throat that was more wounded animal than human and she forced her feet to keep going forward. The stars were still bright and her eyes adjusted gradually as she moved forward. She couldn’t tell a hole from flat ground beneath her feet, but it wasn’t so dark that she was wandering like a blind penguin.

“You can do this,” her voice was almost a shock in the quiet of the night and she realized that the nocturnal noises hadn’t been there. Since the time the motorcycle had stopped to now there had been nothing. As if all of nature had fled this place that should have been overgrown with insects and all that preyed on them. “I’m an idiot,” Pidge groaned and rubbed her hands against her forehead, “an _idiot_.”

The grass rustled.

She kept moving.

But that grass was so tall and that _thing_ was still following her that she started going faster and faster and _faster_ until she was running again, her eyes wide and flickering from side to side as she tried to find any sign of where she was besides the silhouette of the factory to her right. When the grass stopped, though, Pidge hit cement with her palms and her knees. The denim tore and her skin stung, a tingling riding up through her knuckles and wrists, up all the way through her elbow and to her shoulders.

Pidge cursed and fumbled back up to her feet, trying her best not to look at either place. She tried taking a step and almost fell again. Instead, she locked her knees and swallowed, looking around to see where she was.

The cement was pale under her feet, standing out like a path of moonlight with the stars above and the walls of darkness on either side. She took a step towards the factory and where she knew there was a possibility of Keith still searching for his knife. Ahead of her, the grass parted, and gold eyes watched her.

Pidge backed away from the towers of steel and brick. The woods were at her back and she decided to trust them.

Those skinny aspens with the watchful eyes.

There was no running for her, not while each step send a shooting arch of fire up her side and her shoulder throbbed, so Pidge kept her eyes straight ahead, watching that silver path and walking as fast as she was able towards the trees. No hissing came from behind her, but she didn’t dare turn around and look to see if the creature was still following her.

In her chest, a bird fluttered its wings against the bars of her ribcage, her eyes felt sticky from being open for so long, and a snake slithered up her back before making a den between her shoulder blades.

Pidge’s breathing quickened to quiet pants. Her feet felt like they weren’t hers even as she walked on them, but looking away from the tree line made her dizzy so she kept moving. Kept going forward.

There was warmth on her back.

She walked faster.

Something cracked. Something heavy and thick and it sounded like a fan falling over in the middle of the night.

“Please,” Pidge breathed, praying to the trees, maybe, or the stars, “ _please_.”

There was something that bulged up ahead, like a hump of a camel growing out of the earth and there was a subtle splash, a trickle, and a faraway roar. The edges of grey came into slow relief as Pidge came closer, the black spots clinging to the side that was probably moss but looked like open mouths in the dark. It had high sides and was wide enough to hold Keith’s motorcycle and maybe half of another one side by side. Steps led up to the walkway and she took them one at a time. They were small, almost as if they weren’t really there, and she almost tripped, but then the walls were around her and she put her hand down on the wide stone that kept its users from falling over the side.

Pidge could hear the water rushing underneath her feet as she walked.

“Okay,” she whispered, “okay.” The trees were up ahead, their tops swaying, the black eyes watching her.

Pidge turned.

Gold glared at her from the other side of the bridge. They didn’t narrow so much as human eyes did, but there was something burning in them that made her shiver. Hate was there. Hate and hunger. She watched as it lifted one foot, paused, and then put it down again in the same spot as if it was stuck there.

Like a dog at one of those invisible fences.

Pidge kept backing away, ducking under the side of the bridge and hiding behind a tree, back against the wall of the bridge.

A low pitched ding sent her heart into the back of her throat and cold through her limbs. It was followed by a vibration from under her ribs and she dug through her jacket pocket until her hand found her phone.

There were two bars on it now and she held it in both hands for a moment, staring at the picture of her and Matt—the wallpaper she had kept after all this time. An alert from twitter had come in and she deleted it without reading what it said.

She tried Keith’s cell phone first and got nothing except his voicemail.

Shiro picked up on the second ring.

“ ** _What_**?!”

The relief made the tension bleed out of her and she fell back, almost limp, against the stone. “Shiro!”

“ _Pidge_ ,” there was a strange sound from his end, a creak of some kind, and she heard the exhaustion in his voice, “ _it’s **three** in the **morning**._ ”

Was it? Pidge hadn’t checked. She winced. He didn’t get a lot of sleep but… he did say to call him in case of an emergency and, well, this _might_ be one. “I know, I know but Shiro—”

Wood cracked on the other side of the river and Pidge sucked in a deep breath and covered her mouth the hand that wasn’t holding her phone. She sat there for a moment, staring straight ahead and not daring to look at the opposite end of the bridge.

Shiro’s voice came over the speaker, more and more frantic, but she didn’t dare answer him until there were no more sounds.

“Sorry, _sorry,_ ” Pidge gasped and sucked in a great, heaving breath, “I don’t know where Keith is, Shiro, I’m _—_ ”

A scream that sounded like a thousand people in pain hit her like a truck and Pidge almost dropped her phone. It was a howl of agony, of _anger_. Her stomach clenched and her heart stuttered to a stop as her body froze. Each of her muscles were taut and the pain was rising through her ribs again. Desperately, Pidge thought of the creature trying to take a step on the bridge and then not.

“It’s okay _,_ ” she whispered, “it’s okay, I’m safe, I’m safe,” Her voice became hitched, the words coming quicker until they flowed from her mouth faster than the water to her side.“It’s okay, it’s _okay_.”

_“Where are you?”_ Shiro demanded, his voice snapping through the phone.

Her hand shook and she couldn’t quite find the words for a second as they were caught so far down in the back of her throat she was afraid she was going to choke on them.

_“ **Pidge** , where **are** you?”_

“The old bridge,” Pidge managed, finally, “the one off Bray Road close to the—” she made the mistake of looking towards movement and there were the eyes, watching her from the other side of the river.

“ _Shit_ ,” She breathed and heard the phone beep as the signal was lost. The device was clenched between her fingers and her knuckles were becoming white from the pressure. Still, the creature didn’t move from where it was and Pidge used the bridge to carefully get back up to her feet and slowly move around the side of the tree.

“ _Pidge_!”

She didn’t dare turn to look at where the voice was coming from, focused instead on the thing and its reaction.

It didn’t move.

“ _PIDGE_!”

There was a bouncing light coming from the pathway.

_Keith_.

Pidge swallowed and glanced away from the creature to look at her phone and find the flashlight app.

She looked up and the thing was gone.

Keith.

_Keith_.

Pidge managed to get on her feet. “Keith!” She yelled back and heard her own voice echo. The flashlight stopped it’s weird bouncing and turned, pointing in the direction of the bridge.

“Pidge?” The light moved over the stone.“Pidge! Where are you?”

She didn’t step out from her hiding spot and pressed her stinging palms against the stone instead. “The bridge! Keith— _Keith_ , you have to hurry, you have to—”

That hissing sound was moving away from her but she couldn’t see the thing, not in the dark with the eyes turned away from her in the tall grass on either side of the cement road.

“What are you _talking_ about—” Keith’s voice trailed off to something softer and Pidge held her breath as the light swung over the grass. “I’m coming over to you,” He called, the light on the grass as he walked closer, moving sideways like a crab.

His silhouette was framed against the stars and the light in his hand. When Keith turned just slightly, his face seemed to be floating, almost glowing with his eyes dark and shadowed. He was looking to one side of the path and Pidge sucked in a deep breath as the grass parted behind him. “Keith!”

She was across the bridge before she could think about it, grabbing the scruff of his jacket and wrenching him back towards the bridge. They both tripped over the tiny stairs, sending her tumbling and him falling halfway on her with a grunt.

The flashlight rolled to the side, hit the corner where the wall met the bridge, and stopped, pointing back to where Keith had been. It illuminated the creature and the strange, rock-like swirls and dips of the blackened body. Those red and yellow glowing lines revealing what was underneath the surface seemed dimmer once they weren’t the only light in the dark.

Pidge held her breath as Keith pushed himself off her and fell off to the other side. Both watched the featureless face as the eyes stared into their own.

“The hell is that?” Keith muttered.

“I dunno,” Pidge said, her voice quiet, as if she was trying to copy the toneless flutter of the wind as it moved through her hair. “It’s been following me.”

A hand rested on her thigh and squeezed, probably to comfort.

She could feel Keith shaking though, so she grabbed his fingers and squeezed back. “I don’t think it can follow us,” he said after a moment where the creature didn’t move.

“That’s ridiculous,” Pidge scooted farther back on the bridge and the gold eyes focused completely on her, making her freeze in her tracks.

“Spirits can’t cross moving water,” Keith pulled his hand away and slowly got to his feet. He was crouched low in a defensive stance, ready to bolt at any time even as he grabbed Pidge by her jacket and pulled her to her feet.

She hissed as the skin on her knees pulled and stretched, but swallowed all others when Keith gave her a calculating look. “I’m fine,” she told him, “just some bumps.”

He looked her up and down, patted her shoulder, then leaned down to pick up the flashlight. Pidge kept her eyes on the creature as Keith guided her back, but it didn’t move from the base of the bridge. It didn’t even try to move forward.

It just stood there and watched.

She kept her phone pointed at it and kept the flashlight app on as she walked backwards, just to make sure that the thing wasn’t coming any closer.

“If I had known that it was still chasing us I wouldn’t have left you alone,” Keith said, letting go of her shoulder.

Pidge heard heavy plastic rustling as he moved around and she half-heartedly guessed that he was digging through his bag. She still didn’t turn around, her heart still beating painfully in her throat. When words finally came out of her mouth they were choked and squeaky as if they had been squeezed out of a toothpaste tube. “It’s okay,” she managed, “d-did you find your knife?”

There was a pause and she heard Keith inhale, hold it, then release. “Pidge,” he said, “I didn’t go back for the knife.”

“What—”

He snatched the phone from her hand and put something else—dried plants tied together with twine—in her hand. There was smoke rising from the lazily glowing embers and Pidge stared at it for a long moment before she raised it to eye level and scowled.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“Here,” Keith handed her another thing, pushing it into her other hand. That one was just a tad bit heavier than the bundle of burning plants with something akin to a handle that was soft against her skin, “keep the embers going with that.”

There was no real good light coming from the embers, so Pidge was just able to see that it was some kind of fan made of feathers. She waved it at the smoke and sent it spiraling slowly over the bridge as Keith came up beside her, holding his so called ‘lost’ knife in one hand. The blade was black and only the handle glinted in the dim light. He held another burning thing in his other hand, but that one smelled sweet and the smoke wasn’t as thick. His shoulder bumped into Pidge’s and she breathed in slowly.

“We didn’t come here on accident, did we?” Her voice trembled as she spoke.

He didn’t say anything.

“I thought you said you didn’t believe in ghosts?”

Keith’s eyes seemed to glow, the angles of his face shadowed. “That’s not a ghost.”

Pidge shrugged half-heartedly. “That’s fair.”

He bumped her shoulder again, body warm against hers in the cold chill of the late evening. She relaxed beside him and that’s when Keith turned back to face the creature waiting for them at the other end of the bridge. It had moved back, away from the smell coming from both plants, and seemed to be glaring at them even though there had been no movement to its face.

“You are not welcome here,” Keith said, his voice seeming to flow on the smoke, “I take this smoke and tell you to leave upon it, to cleanse this place of yourself, to free the land of your influence.”

If anything, the creature looked even angrier.

“Pidge,” Keith murmured, “picture the spirit being whisked away with the smoke.”

“ _What_?” She stopped fanning for a second and yelped when some ash landed on her hand. It was blown away just as quickly, but she quickly went back to waving the feathers. “Keith, this is _crazy_ —”

He nudged her with his shoulder once more. “No,” Keith nodded towards the gold eyes, “ _that’s_ crazy, _that_ shouldn’t be here.”

“It _makes_ smoke when it _walks_ ,” she hissed back, “how do you know you’re not making it worse?”

Keith looked down at her and he shrugged and gave her a small grin that seemed to be just a tad sheepish. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

She stared up at him, counted the pros and cons of her staying, of what that thing would do to her if they honestly just pissed it off more than it clearly was. “If I die,” Pidge told him, “I’m going to haunt you until you believe in ghosts.”

“I have no doubt about that,” he said and he waved his own burning stick through the air, sending a loop of smoke towards the creature.

“Okay,” Pidge said and watched the smoke from her plants waft gently over to the creature, “okay.” Closing her eyes so she didn’t have to see if it was working or not, she imagined it taking bits and pieces of the blackened body with it, peeling it away layer by layer like an onion and whisking them away into the dark.

A howl almost made her drop the fan and Pidge felt her stomach crawl up her ribcage as if it was a ladder and try to shove its way through her throat. She kept picturing the black being peeled away and the smoke cooling the red and yellow gooey insides-hardening them until they, too, could be peeled away and flutter off over the grasses like a charred butterfly.

“Atta girl,” Keith murmured.

The heat was quickly approaching her hand, though, and Pidge hissed, opening her eyes and dropping the bundle when she realized how close the embers were to her fingers. Keith promptly stomped on it, picked the rest up, and tossed it over the side of the bridge into the water below.

“Ow, ow, _ow_ ,” Pidge sucked on the skin and hissed as it stung.

Keith gently pulled her hand away from her mouth, tilted it one way, then the other, and dug out his water bottle from his backpack. “Here,” he said, slowly pouring the water over the burn, not so bad, right?”

“You made me hold burning plants and wave a—a—”she stared down at the fan. “What even _is_ this thing?!”

“It’s a fan,” he took it from her and waved it inches away from her nose. “See? Fan.”

Pidge knocked his hand away, “ha ha, very funny, well, _Keith_ , thanks for letting me stand here like an idiot and wave a _fan_ at some burning plants—”

“It was sage.”

“— _Sage_ , whatever! While that… that _thing_ —” Pidge turned around to point at the creature but the gold eyes and the black body were gone. There was nothing but the factory, the tall grass, and the sound of rushing water. “Where’d it go?”

Keith shrugged. “Gone.”

“Nothing’s ever just _gone_ —”

A different roar muffled his response as two headlights rounded a corner in the trees and a large, black truck skidded to a stop on the loose gravel. The driver’s side door was flung open and Shiro managed to pull himself out, the seat belt sliding over his arm and his shirt on backwards.

They all stared at each other; Shiro on one end, panting slightly, hair a mess, eyes wide and wild with Pidge and Keith on the other, both covered in soot, one holding a pretty large fan made of feathers and the other an upside-down water bottle that as now empty.

A few crickets chirruped.

“What the _hell_ ,” Shiro said.

**Author's Note:**

> don't tell anyone but this was my aphelion piece and since the editor snipped off 50% of it without telling me i'm posting the entirety as a whole.
> 
> i love cryptid hunters, i love the supernatural.
> 
> if i butchered smudging please leave me a constructive critic down in the review boxes because fuck i researched so much and talked to so many Navajos about their feelings and tried to write it as close as i could without 1) making people uncomfortable and 2) being disrespectful. i apologize for getting anything wrong and if there's something you would like to see fixed please leave a comment and i'll fix it.
> 
> Ahéhee’.


End file.
